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How to disable Cortana in Windows 10

Cortana is a new feature that comes packaged with Windows 10. The feature is very similar to Siri that is found on the Apple iPhone and much like Siri it acts as a personal assistant to you.

Cortana can be accessed via the start menu search function and you can either type questions and instructions or ask them using your microphone.

Whilst Cortana can be useful in some scenarios it can also be very annoying and whilst you may like to disable it doing so is slightly harder than you might think – Microsoft being Microsoft they really want you to use these new features that they come up with and disabling Cortana will not stop it from running in the background.

How to disable Cortana permanently

Luckily there is a supported method for completely disabling Cortana in Windows 10 and it can be done as follows.

Step 1: Disable Cortana from the search menu

Cortana can be partially disabled by clicking on the search icon at the bottom left of Windows 10, clicking on the gear icon in the left-hand bar and then clicking “Off” under the Cortana web searches section.

Step 2: Uninstall Cortana

After you have disabled Cortana you can completely uninstall it in order to prevent it from running in the background.

Click on the start menu and then type in PowerShell, right click on PowerShell and select “run as administrator”.

This command will completely remove Cortana, it will not be accessible from the start menu and the process will no longer run in the background.

There are also other methods of removing or completely disabling Windows Cortana but this method follows standard Microsoft practices and is therefore likely to have less impact on the operating system than other more controversial methods such as renaming the Cortana folder.

Hey guys, you may have the wrong package name. Try this to get the package name first: Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq ‘Microsoft.Windows.Cortana’} | Select-String “Cortana”

Then run it with the name you get in return. In order to do this all in one script, you may use: $cortanaPackage = Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq ‘Microsoft.Windows.Cortana’} | Select-String “Cortana” Remove-AppxPackage $cortanaPackage

Remove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA) error 0x80070032: AppX Deployment Remove operation on package Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.7.0.14393_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy from: C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy failed. This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the computer using Turn Windows Features on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app. NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId] 9533cfaa-93a7-0003-10de-3395a793d201 in the Event Log or use the command line Get-AppxLog -ActivityID 9533cfaa-93a7-0003-10de-3395a793d201 At line:2 char:1 + Remove-AppxPackage $cortanaPackage + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Windo…l_cw5n1h2txyewy:String) [Remove-AppxPackage], IOException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.RemoveAppxPackageCommand

Actually easier to achieve it a single line of PowerShell code. Pipe the GET through a WHERE statement to filter the initial results and capture only the item(s) you want, then pipe the results directly to the REMOVE. Never have to worry about version numbers. Here it is: Get-AppxPackage | Where {$_.Name -match “cortana”} | Remove-AppxPackage

Remove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA) error 0x80070032: AppX Deployment Remove operation on package Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.7.0.14393_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy from: C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy failed. This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the computer using Turn Windows Features on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app. NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId] b5a35891-a1ea-0000-c098-a3b5eaa1d201 in the Event Log or use the command line Get-AppxLog -ActivityID b5a35891-a1ea-0000-c098-a3b5eaa1d201 At line:1 char:54 + … t-AppxPackage | Where {$_.Name -match “cortana”} | Remove-AppxPackage + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Windo…l_cw5n1h2txyewy:String) [Remove-AppxPackage], IOException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.RemoveAppxPackageCommand

I searched through my packages and found two of them. CortanaListenUIApp_10.0.15063.0_neutral__cw5n1h2txyewy Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.8.12.15063_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy both have the following error.

remove-appxpackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA) error 0x80070032: AppX Deployment Remove operation on package Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.8.12.15063_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy from: C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy failed. This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the computer using Turn Windows Features on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app. NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId] cd791309-1378-0000-7c30-7ccd7813d301 in the Event Log or use the command line Get-AppxLog -ActivityID cd791309-1378-0000-7c30-7ccd7813d301 At line:1 char:1 + remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.8.12.15063_neutral_neu … + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Windo…l_cw5n1h2txyewy:String) [Remove-AppxPackage], IOException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.RemoveAppxPackageCommand